Feeback on Adventure mode

I just completed the first Adventure mode. I chose the ultimate difficulty (go big or go home, right?) I chose the “long” path at the first choice fork. At least I am pretty sure, I did (more on that, later.) And I did some, but not all of the little “side battles.” Here are my thoughts…

  • Difficulty:
    It felt really good in terms of the difficulty, on the ultimate setting. By that, I mean that it felt like it matched up to other areas of the game at highest difficulty settings. I expected the skirmish battles to be nothing too scary with my loadout, and that panned out. I expected some of the dungeons to possibly trip me up, if I had bad luck. I did not see any terrible luck, but if I had, then that prediction would have also panned out. So A+ there for me.

  • Completion Rewards:
    I received 575 gems for completion on ultimate. While I’d be lying if I said I wouldn’t want more gems, it seemed like a decent gem reward within the context of the other modes with gem rewards. I liked that we get the rewards of our difficulty and also the lower difficulties. I’d call myself reasonably content, but not euphoric. lol Solid B.

  • Rewards within the Adventure:
    These would be the chests and also the smattering of reward tiles to collect.
    Meh? Getting a wooden chest for a level 97 dungeon, is kinda bad. And while everyone can always use shards, there is no excitement there. Pretty much everything else in the game throws shards at us. I’m not saying we don’t want them. I’d just say we want something else too, that feels a little more interesting. Unfortunately, other than throwing some glyphs and mythic relics in there (hahaha), I’m not sure how you could make it more interesting. This is a general issue with the entire game, honestly. Not just adventure. Rewards are boring. Useful? Sure. But boring. Perhaps throw in some marks? Still arguably boring, but at least they don’t drop in every other mode? One positive here, though, is the experience reward on battles. That part is an A+. I’d grade the battle rewards a C-

  • Merchant tiles:
    I’m not even sure how to grade this. There were 3 merchant tiles, IIRC. Nothing to get too excited about but the first two seemed ok to me. The final one was just shards for gems. Seriously?! lol I could live with a gem offer… but shards? That last shop took it from a B- to a D-.

  • The map / navigation / clarity of play:
    This could use some work. Some folks I know had trouble scrolling around the map or zooming. I did not have a problem there. But I did miss some of the side battles because I did not realize I could do them and get back to where I was. And while I was pretty sure I was understanding Eveline’s explanations for the choice forks, I wasn’t 100% confident that I was going to end up where I was planning to end up, until AFTER I had locked in the choice. Hard to explain what I mean. But it was like “choose this to get there” and I’m looking at the map thinking, “but what about that over there?” It’s not terrible. It could just use some more clarity, I think. C+

  • Overall impression or TLDR:
    I generally enjoyed the mode. Rewards were not super exciting (but that’s an overall game thing), the merchant had a sketchy moment and there are some clarity issues. However, the completion rewards felt fair and the experience gain was very nice. And finally, it felt more interesting than what I usually do in my daily play.

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My TLDR view of adventure mode was … Meh? I was really hoping for some “new” mechanics, like the mini games from the earlier PQ games. This was just a bunch of skirmishes and a few dungeons with, admittedly, very nice XP, but totally underwhelming rewards otherwise. I could have done a Hunt for the same effective play and without the annoying energy limitations.

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I am in agreement for sure.

I was excited to have a new mechanic to try but it was just skirmishes and dungeons and moving around…. I just really didn’t feel moved by it.

I am hoping that further iterations of it will get better and add new mechanics.

The rewards inside the event were underwhelming to say the least. I was doing the toughest difficulty and i could not believe i was getting armor runes and etc as if someone playing at that level really needs those?

Then when i met the merchant with the offers that cost gems I was like……wow i can’t believe everywhere i look all i see is greed.

When i finally beat it i was happy with the gem reward so that was the one bright spot for me I guess.

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I get that. But the exp is kinda way better than hunt, honestly. Energy limits bug me to no end, though. Especially, when you can’t repeat. Like pardon me if I have to work on Tuesday, and stopping to play a game might kill someone? Luckily my work does not involve keeping people alive. But, it would be nice to know that mechanic was gone the next time I was in hospital?

Still I’d all day rather do adventure for 575 gems than pvp for 500. At least it feels like some sort of game is there?

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I’m going to full on disagree with the new mechanics thing. Why? Because the rewards will still be meh! 99.99% of the entire game is meh rewards. It is apparently the vision on rewards. So I, personally, would rather not have to jump through weird hoops to acquire my dryer lint.

That said… if there was something more exciting in the rewards? Sure. Bring the hoops.

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What I think was… This must be the tutorial adventure that show people the structure and mechanics of aa adventure. So inferior reward is acceptable.
I’ll update my opinion after 2ND ADVENTURE starts.

1st edit after finished gong’s adventure: decent reward, bot nothing interesting ATM.

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That’s fair. I am hoping for it and the rewards to get better. :+1:

What reward would you call exciting? A simple glyph/t4 relic? Random legendary item (equipment, spells, minions included)? Perhaps a free +1 level upgrade to one of the items you were wearing on that adventure?

I really feel like I have covered my thoughts on the “in-mode rewards,” already,

But I will take a stab at really clarifying. The type of game this is, where your power is all but totally decided by your gear, means the rewards are never going to be exciting. Because, they can’t be. It is baked into the game, by design.

We collect thousands of rather boring, somewhat generic, pieces parts, to gradually improve our heroes. Endgame, we collect the slightly more interesting and less generic parts to finish it all up. They can’t throw those more interesting endgame materials around too liberally, because 1)It would speed progression too fast. 2)It would also make those mats just as humdrum.

I suggested they could perhaps add some marks into the rewards. It doesn’t need to be a boatload of marks. I suggested marks, not because they are all that exciting. Nothing is, and nothing can be, in a game like this. I suggested it, because it is a reward that isn’t obtainable doing every other mode in the game. Honor, would be the other thing with some degree of novelty. Dungeon and skirmish loot tickets is another candidate for offering some novelty.

In a perfect world, cosmetic things like skins would be a fun reward. But it’s totally impractical. They can’t throw new 3d skins at us once a week. A lot of work behind those.

So, just a handful of the more obscure currencies, thrown into the mix, would make the rewards a little more interesting to me. And it would also be nice not to get wooden skirmish chests from rather challenging dungeons.

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The Adventure mode is really great for having little mini-adventures away from the truly lacerating problems the party faces inside and outside of its journey. Two set screws to consider:

1.) much more and more interesting dialogues
2.) the rewards need to be adjusted (many other players already have dropped in their opinion about this!)

For me, these would be the two most important points to give value to the eager expectation of new energy points.

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My feedback:

A lot of people have already made very good points, especially about the lack of new mechanics and about the rewards, but I’ll add a few things:

  • I’ll admit I was overjoyed to see a map similar to the old PQ games at first. Yes, it was a bit disappointing that this new mode is so similar to others, but the map layout was very nostalgic in the best way.
  • Energy definitely needs to carry over. I’ve been left with 1 energy I can’t use twice now.
  • It’s impossible to make it to the end and still explore the side paths with the limited energy you get. I was initially excited to do all the side paths, so this was frustrating.
  • I was also a bit disappointed that you couldn’t just do everything. In the older puzzle quest games, if you went into one part of the map, you could go into the other later. You weren’t permanently cut off from rewards due to your choices. I understand the reasoning behind it, but I liked the other system better, because I’m a ‘must collect/do everything’ kind of player.
  • Some nodes have more than one fight, and there’s no way to tell that, which is frustrating. It was really great when the story stages added the bar showing there were multiple fights or conversations in that stage, so please give some visual indicator for this here (and in season battles) too!

I actually wish energy wasn’t a thing at all. Hunts, seasons, and other game modes work where if you have the time and ability to beat things, you can just do it. And they work perfectly fine that way. Is there really a need to have energy? It just make things more frustrating. Also, if people are meant to do multiple difficulties, then an energy limit doesn’t give them enough time to do that before the event ends.

One important thing stood out to me: the issues with adventure mode are clear to anyone who has played it even once. For example, someone just has to get to a stage that takes 2 energy and have only 1 left to see that’s an issue, and it’s hard to do a full playthrough of adventure mode without running into that issue. And the rewards not being valuable is also clear to anyone who plays the game. So this shows even more that things aren’t being playtested and that none of the devs play their own game. Which is beyond frustrating, but also expected at this point.

All in all, this new mode has some potential, but also has some glaring issues. I’m interested in seeing if the devs actually listen to the players all the way this time (instead of half-listening but still thinking they know better, as has been the case recently). That’ll probably determine if I stick with the game or drop it.

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I play on steam so it might be different? But the battles with multiple fights had two sword icons, and I knew immediately that meant two fights. Again, the steam experience might not be the same as the mobile experience. (I’d play more on mobile but it crashes haha)

Hmmm really? I’m not saying you are wrong. But I finished a day early, meaning I would have gotten 6 more energy? I had energy left over when I was done (But I can’t remember how much… could have been just 1?) I skipped 5 battles, none of which were dungeons or multi-fight battles. 2 of the skipped battles were due to the original choice fork and could not be done because of my choice to go the long way. So that leaves 3 I skipped because I did not have a clue what those double lines meant until I was past it. Grrr Even if all three cost two energy (And I have no reason to think they did) I would have been able to do them and still finish. I think? (Dear Devs… this is that clarity thing I was talking about!)

Truth! Combined with no energy stacking, I saw that and was not pleased. It ended up working out for me, but I noticed it also.

Also this. Time gates of any kind make me grumble. I get the business reason (daily engagement numbers etc) but I’d rather not have to punch a timeclock on my entertainment. Devs… please just trust me, I’ll log in every day. It’s just some days I can play for a few hours and other days I can barely manage 20 minutes.

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Rip crashes. Hmm, you’re right, some battles do have two sword icons on them. I could have sworn some of the ones only marked with single battle options gave me double battles, but I probably just wasn’t paying attention properly.

Hmm, let me try to math it. This is what my map looks like on Champion (sorry for the flood of images, but wasn’t sure how else to show it easily):







I can’t remember if getting rewards takes energy or not, but I think not? Conversations do though. Assuming that, the first sidepath to the right took 4 energy (2 normal battles, 1 dungeon, and 3 rewards) vs 2 for the shorter path. The next side path (not counting the second choice, because that uses the same amount of energy either way) uses 2 extra energy (dungeon and 1 reward). The next side path uses another 2 energy (2 battles and a shop). The entire longest path possible takes 27 energy, if I’m mathing right (I might not be). The event lasts 5 days and gives 6 energy per day, so 30 energy in all. However, you get stopped with 1 energy left before the first dungeon, so that’s -1 energy. And I got stopped with 1 energy one today too (but that one might be my fault because I think I might have not used 1 energy one day, so I won’t count it). So it looks like you can do everything, but just barely. And you have to not die more than once to be able to do it. I died once at the first dungeon because I was autobattling it at first, so I had to use an extra 2 energy to beat it. So I think that’s why I’m behind on energy. So it looks like you’re right, but it’s super close to not being able to do it. That 2 lost energy is what’s causing me to have to skip a sidepath, I think. I can just barely make it to the exit, but had to skip some sidepaths to do it. And on the hardest difficulties, you’re likely to die at least once or twice, so it would be almost impossible to So, TLDR: you’re technically right, but it’s close enough to not being able to do it that I think it’s still a good point.

Edit: oh wait, I forgot to account for the extra 2 energy used by the last side branch. So that takes it up to 30 energy exactly, with that lost 1 energy included. That doesn’t change the result though, thankfully.

Yes, this exactly.

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At one point I read that it is boring to always have to deal with the same rewards despite a new mode (I agree with this 100%).

Since the adventure mode is a companion-bound mode, why not link it to at least one corresponding crystal as a reward (example: Gong’s Sushi Surprise allows you to definitely get a Gong Crystal)?

Personally, I find it quite tiring to have to play through the main story again and again just because of these crystals, if you don’t find some randomly in the daily quests or get offered in the store or kingdom bazaar. Also, the random crystal available once a Saturday for wooden tokens is no guarantee (especially for new players) to finally get one you really need without any effort.

Besides, this would have been the right moment to integrate completely new rewards into the game; and I’m sure that countless other PQ3 enthusiasts before me have already wished/asked for that. Other games are doing it, why don’t you take a look at the competition? … How about badges that permanently grant small boosts to certain citadel properties, equipment attributes or minion abilities?

And since apparently nothing happens in terms of Questpass tasks, you could insert a number of successfully completed adventures per month there.

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Sorry for the double post, but I have to get something off my chest:

As far as I could observe, the adventure “Gongs Sushi Surprise” has exactly two conversations; one at the beginning and one at the end.

Why? Why? Why??? … sigh Actually, this form of game mode is excellent for creating small standalone adventures that necessarily have nothing to do with the main story. But we players can’t EXPERIENCE anything if no story is told - this would be the chance for the person responsible for the story to really let off steam. So I ask myself why this is not done (no, I don’t let time reasons apply here anymore).

Furthermore, it would be great if already experienced adventures with randomly chosen rules could be played again and again, gladly in equal intervals (without renewed final reward). Then everyone can decide on their own whether they accepts this “challenge” again or not.

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I like the map for the old school pq vibes. It’s… I know it’s functionally not very… necessary?, but I like the style. I think it makes me feel like I’m in the world vs checking of challenge boxes. Do have difficulty controlling zoom and scroll (mobile).

Energy system was funky, as folks mentioned, having 1 left over feels bad, but looks like that’s not gonna be in all the time. Definitely like the non energy and do it my own pace (read:all day one…) Limited energy could be interesting for “challenging” risk/reward styles, but mostly think it’d make people feel bad if they messed up and couldn’t complete it.

Do like the snippets of characters. Again the immersion, I guess. Campaign feeling little campy right now, but this snippet is like “oh, that Gong…” [Insert laugh track]

End of adventure reward has been pretty good imo. Whole bunch a gems, glyph.

Having some serious branching/decisions would be cool, hope to see that soon.

Overall, it’s a nice addition in my book.

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